Ths EU is likely to join Sweden in imposing a tax on banks to fund any future bailouts that may be needed. The EU is also slated to push the idea at the June G-20 summit in Canada.
Will the US get on board or do the bank lobbyists still control what Congress does? A tax on banks calculated in terms of their liabilities is a sensible response to the crisis, in which excess leverage was a major factor. Such a tax should be viewed as a reasonable charge to banks for the implicit guarantee--at least until we take action to ensure that the "guarantee" of taxpayer bailouts is not necessary and will not be invoked to save the big banks. Banks that enjoy the implicit guarantee also enjoy lower costs of funds--i.e., they can borrow more cheaply than other banks. There's a clear moral hazard here--enjoying the guarantee from being too big to fail means that it is more likely that the big bank will put itself in the position of overleverage and perhaps needing another bailout. So the tax charge makes sense, as do other mechanisms to limit leverage.
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